If you build it they will come ? and keep coming and coming and coming.
At the University of Maryland, Baltimore BioPark, the biotech industry is alive and growing. The UMB Health Sciences Research Park Corporation announced a Request For Proposals for a third building in the park, located on the 800 block of West Baltimore Street. The development is already home to two buildings but has the possibility of growing to as many as 10.
And with a healthy and growing biotech industry in the region, 10 is a realistic goal, industry insiders say.
Ethel Rubin, chief executive officer of BioFortis Inc., said “tremendous” demand for biotech office and lab space is driving both UMB BioPark growth and a proposed facility at Johns Hopkins University in partnership with the East Baltimore Development Committee.
“They?re filling up very quickly,” she said of the existing BioPark facilities. “They have established biotech companies there.”
She said there would also be a need for biotech incubator space to complement the tech incubator at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
The first building, opened along with a garage in 2005, is 120,00 square feet and serves tenants such as the UMB School of Medicine?s Center for Vascular and Inflammatory Diseases, Alba Therapeutics and FASgen. Meanwhile, the second, 240,000-square-foot building houses UMB?s School of Public Health and the UMB School of Medicine?s new Institute for Genome Sciences.
The third building, including 100,000 to 180,000 square feet of space, is expected to open by the middle of 2009. Cost estimates for the new building are in the $40 million to $45 million range, financed entirely by private dollars.
“The driving purpose is to capitalize on the research being done at our University and others in the area and try to commercialize those into new products and get new treatments in the market,” said Jim Hughes, president of the nonprofit company that manages the development of the BioPark. “In the course of doing that, create jobs and economic development here in Baltimore.”
The deadline for RFP submissions is Aug. 15.
How will biotech growth be good for the region? Respond below in our comment section.
